Fargo Rock City (15 page)

Probably the strangest entry in this genre was Stryper, the self-proclaimed “Yellow and Black Attack.” The fact that Stryper had two platinum albums might be the ultimate testament to metal's popularity: When you consider the stereotype of what
kind of people listened to hard rock, it's amazing that Stryper was even cast in a position to compete as a major act. In their performance video for “Always There for You,” the band is referring to Jesus, and vocalist Michael Sweet constantly points to the heavens; to combat the demonic power of Iron Maiden, their faux stage is decorated with the digits 777. Stryper also made copious references to the biblical passage Isaiah 53:5. When I eventually looked this up in the Old Testament, I expected to see something like, “And the Lord said unto them, you shall all bow before the power and majesty of rock.” However, it actually gives a prophetic description of how the Messiah would be beaten and wounded for all of mankind's sins. Stryper was not exactly a party band.

The growth of MTV's artistic significance is often credited to the competitive and insular nature of Hollywood. During the 1970s (and particularly because of Vietnam), it slowly became standard for absolutely everyone to go to college, particularly if they had no desire to get a real job. One of the results was a massive population of film school students, most of whom became waiters and valets in the 1980s. Since the vast majority of these Kubrick wannabes couldn't crack the motion picture industry, they saw opportunities to make minimovies in the world of rock 'n' roll. The idea was that cinematically compelling videos could catapult an artist into feature films, and—occasionally—it worked. The best example is probably David Fincher, who went on to make amazing movies like
Se7en
and
Fight Club
after a prolific career as a video director for everyone from Madonna to Loverboy.

However, it soon became very obvious that you did not need a skilled filmmaker to tweak the appearance of a fairly straightforward rock video. Escalating technology made the addition of video effects incredibly easy, if not necessarily sparkling. In Vixen's “Edge of a Broken Heart,” a glove-covered hand (presumably lead singer Janet Gardner's) reaches up and appears to “turn the page” of the TV screen, advancing between color shots of the girls jamming and black-and-white clips of the girls putting on lipstick, shopping in strip malls, and hanging out with
their friends in Poison. When watched today, it seems painfully simplistic. But “Edge of a Broken Heart” is a perfect illustration of the “live without an audience” abstraction: You see the musicians performing, you briefly see them frolicking, and it's more than a moving picture. There is fantasy, as well as a few fleeting grains of reality. Through both production and presentation, we actually feel like we've
learned
something about these people.

The “live without an audience” video was an especially cagey move for upstart bands (like Vixen) since they didn't necessarily have an audience, anyway (again, like Vixen). It would not be very cool for any band to shoot a video with fourteen people in the audience, except for maybe Belle and Sebastian.

However, there was a larger plan: If your “live without an audience” clip was wicked cool, maybe you'd get people to come and see you for real. And if enough kids showed up for at least one show, you could make the “live
with
an audience” video. These projects are among the most memorable shards of the metal legacy; when you close your eyes and try to imagine the biggest hard rock bands of the 1980s, the most fluent image tends to be the marquee shot of a long-locked vocalist communicating with twenty thousand screaming kids. These are the videos that show which groups hit the big time—they are proof that a given group graduated to the class of
rock stars.

Once again, the early template for this creation comes from Van Halen. The video for “Panama” opened with a massive shot of VH playing before the kind of crowd only they could draw; it clearly outlined who was the biggest band in the land (this kind of distinction was always a serious concern for Van Halen—in the early 1980s, they always wanted to make sure they had larger amps than KISS, and Alex Van Halen always wanted a larger drum kit than Eric Carr). The onstage action in “Panama” focused on the band members hanging from cables and swinging across the stage, capturing the wild (but still boyishly playful) Van Halen image. The band had actually made a primitive live video for “Unchained” in 1981, but “Panama” was a far better representation of the band's rambunctious personality.

The strength of “Panama” is that the concert footage is not overused; in fact, it's underused. The problem with most performance videos is that they're usually less than five minutes long, but they still get boring. “Panama” does not, and that's due to the non-live footage that creates a goofy, non sequitur story line.

Director Pete Angelus had a good grasp on what made David Lee Roth appealing. He understood that Roth was a clown, but not necessarily a joke; Dave might do something stupid, but he didn't do stuff that was dorky. The most memorable shot from “Panama” is Roth getting dragged out of a hotel by police, wearing only handcuffs and a towel. The offense is never explained, but it's obviously illegal and it obviously involved nudity. Seconds later, Roth is back drinking Budweiser with the posse and doing karate kicks in public. That kind of paradox was '84 Van Halen personified: One minute you're arrested for snorting coke off a hooker's ass; the next minute you're hoisted on a bungee cord in front of twenty-two thousand people.

When a band makes a video like “Panama,” the members often claim the clip is a “tribute” to their fans. Usually, this is a lie; it's akin to how groups regurgitate studio tracks onto a live album and swear it captures the true feeling of what a band is “really about,” even though it's just a way to sell the material to the same audience twice. Still, there may be some sincerity to the suggestion that a live video credits the audience as a group's unofficial “fifth member” (or as the unofficial “sixth” member, if you have a five-person group—or the unofficial “ninth member,” if you're in Guns N' Roses). Take Mötley Crüe's “Home Sweet Home.” It's a love song that's about touring, and the video translates that idea with an abundant degree of clarity (much more so than the actual lyrics). The slow-motion footage in “Home Sweet Home” is particularly effective; it makes the image of sweat flying off Vince Neil's hair seem
dramatic.
It's amazing how simple any movement can be glamorized by elementary slow-motion photography; Neil becomes as momentarily captivating as Walter Payton's icy breath in an NFL Films production.

The video for “Home Sweet Home” was the most important career decision Mötley Crüe ever made. When
Theatre of Pain
was released, a lot of diehard Crüe fans were less than overjoyed—after the dark, hardcore style of
Shout at the Devil
, the glitter rock on
Theatre of Pain
seemed awfully swishy. I remember being especially disappointed the first time I played “Home Sweet Home,” because it came across as the epitome of a sell-out chick ballad geared toward a nonmetal crowd. In a nonvideo age, Mötley Crüe might have lost its core audience. But “Home Sweet Home” briefly became one of the most popular videos in the history of MTV. It was the channel's most requested video at a time when MTV was rapidly switching from a cultural anomaly to a cultural linchpin. By virtue of a well-shot, well-timed video, Mötley Crüe climbed into the next tier of rock popularity. It suddenly became clear that the Crüe was going to hang around for a while, even if devout metal fans quit playing the records. And since Mötley was clearly the “most metal” of that year's major pop acts, kids like me supported
Theatre of Pain
out of virtual obligation. My thirteen-year-old logic knew that any lame Crüe ballad was still better than Starship's “We Built This City” or Jan Hammer's “Miami Vice Theme,” so “Home Sweet Home” became a classic by default. When the Crüe made this kind of video a second time (for the song “Same Ol' Situation” off
Dr. Feelgood
), it was slicker and sexier—but it would never be as defining as “Home Sweet Home.”

Def Leppard's “Pour Some Sugar On Me” was another concert video that helped cement a band's image for all time. Whenever I think of Joe Elliott, I picture him wearing shredded jeans. “Pour Some Sugar” also provides a snapshot of a commercial juggernaut flexing its muscles during its period of greatest prosperity (according to writer Mick Wall, beneath the mammoth stage used in this video was a harem of totally naked women waiting to get fucked—a legend that's probably exaggerated, but certainly possible). Guns N' Roses' “Paradise City” might be an even better example: Even though he probably only wore it once, Axl Rose's white leather suit is a permanent piece of his historical
benefaction. In fact, the entire “Paradise City” clip is almost perfect. It was mainly shot at two locations: Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands (where Guns was opening for Aerosmith) and at the 1988 Donnington Rock Festival in England (an event infamously remembered for the deaths of two fans during GNR's set). Filmed in black and white, the live images show the band in full force—but the offstage footage accentuates each band member's identity in a surprisingly unforced fashion (serious fans may recall a casual shot of Steven Adler on a boat, and another of Slash signing an autograph while he takes a piss). More than any other video, “Paradise City” re-creates the larger experience of an emotive live event.

However, the Jedi Masters of this concept will always be Bon Jovi. From a creative standpoint, no other band could rival their sincere appreciation for the audience. Watching a Bon Jovi video made you want to see them for real, even if you didn't like their songs. And why? Because they seemed legitimately
honored
to be performing for their fans.

Bon Jovi took at least one substantial influence from Mercury label mate KISS: They believed that anyone who bought a ticket for the show temporarily became their employer. They worked for the people and gave them whatever they wanted. The video for “Lay Your Hands On Me” was actually a lot like “Pour Some Sugar On Me” (which was a lot like “Livin' On a Prayer”), and this similarity made sense; both groups particularly appealed to women and not-so-serious metalheads, so one would expect them to be marketed in the same way. But Bon Jovi seemed
happier
about it. In fact, they seemed so happy that they made “Bad Medicine,” a simple idea that spoke volumes about the entire metal genre.

For the “Bad Medicine” shoot, Bon Jovi scheduled an intimate club show and gave every member of the audience an eight-millimeter camera. The agreement (or at least the espoused agreement) was that everyone could keep the camera, as long as they gave the band whatever they had filmed during the performance (this technique has since been copied by lots of just-married
couples who put disposable cameras on all the supper tables during the wedding reception).

Video producers spliced together a grainy hodgepodge of Bon Jovi being cute and frisky, along with several bonus shots of really hot girls crouching like the amateur photographers they are. Most of the footage looks like it was directed by B-minus film students from UCLA. From a critical standpoint, it gets a little boring.

However, this was the kind of well-intended gimmick that showed where Bon Jovi was coming from. This was not a band who was going to look at the people who made them wealthy and say, “We're only doing this for ourselves.” Jon Bon Jovi recognized that half the value of his art was derived from the people who received it. “Bad Medicine” pushes that idea to its extreme.

A widely held opinion in the aesthetic community insists an artist is more credible if he doesn't consider his audience during the creative process; the philosophy suggests that a true artist
has
to make his art for personal reasons, regardless of whether or not people like it (or even want it). That's plainly stupid, and Bon Jovi knew it. Art is not intrinsic to the universe; art is a human construction. If you killed off all the world's people, you would kill off all the art.
The only thing important about art is how it affects people.
It only needs to affect one person to be
interesting,
but it has to affect many people to be
important.

Like virtually everything else in life, it all comes down to simple mathematics: The more people who are affected by a piece of art, the more important it is. The video for “Bad Medicine” multiplies that principle by making the audience both sides of the equation. They are the creators of the art, and they are also the receivers. Guys like Richie Sambora merely acted as the conduit.

For a fan, performance videos were appreciated as surrogates; they were the way to see a band when you could not see them for real. Warrant's video for “Heaven” was the closest thing to seeing them in concert. However, it still could not compete with a really well-done conceptual video, even though those were few and far between.

Concept videos change the way a song is consumed by the audience, and some artists have become very good at it. Just about every Radiohead video makes me like that band a little more. R.E.M. has excelled at this art from the beginning. Electronica bands seem particularly suited for this kind of creative medium; world-class hipster Spike Jonze (now better known for directing
Being John Malkovich
) has created some brilliant concept videos for the Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, and Fatboy Slim.

On the whole, metal bands are less successful at this venture, and that was especially obvious in the middle 1980s. This entire video genre had improved drastically (for everybody) by the end of the decade, but the early half of the period was not too stellar.